The invention relates to collapsible coat hangers, and particularly to a hanger with hinged locking arms biased by a C-shaped spring to first and second off-center configurations.
There long has been a need for a collapsible coat hanger that is very inexpensive, yet is of very durable construction, is easily deployed by a user to collapse it into a folded configuration or erect it into an opened garment supporting configuration. Most people experience a need at one time or another for a coat hanger that when collapsed can easily fit in a suitcase without occupying much space, yet will not cause damage to the interior thereof or to clothing packed tightly therein. Such a collapsible coat hanger must easily support the weight of ordinary garments, including heavy coats. For some applications, for example in clothing stores, another desirable feature of a collapsible coat hanger would be that it is easily manipulated to a collapsed configuration to rapidly remove a garment, and can be easily erected or expanded to support a garment with little manipulation of either the coat hanger of the garment.
The state-of-the-art is indicated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,227,632 (Collis), which I regard as the closest prior art, and also is indicated by U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,186,857, 4,223,817, 4,114,786, 4,117,960, 4,008,835, 3,966,100, 3,531,028, 3,441,183, 3,209,966, 3,151,788, 2,906,442, 2,881,965, 2,716,513, 2,671,938, 2,509,754, 2,352,264, and 2,137,700.
Despite the large number of attempts that have been made to provide a commercially practical folding coat hanger, as evidenced by the above prior art, no one has yet provided a device that has been sufficiently satisfactory to enjoy widespread commercial success.
It would be desirable to provide an improved hinge structure for the C-shaped spring described in the above indicated pending patent application Ser. No. 856,488.